Neither Gods Nor Genies

In Game Masters Aren't Gods... They're Genies, Neal Litherland argues that the job of a GM (and it's telling that he calls it a job) is "to create challenges ... decide what treasure the players find, what allies they make, and ... do all these things in service to the players." He sees the game as being akin to a book that the players will want to keep reading. In a related discussion on Discord he made it even plainer, casting the GM in the role of a performer and other players as the audience.

There are a couple of big assumptions at play here and I disagree with both of them.

The most obvious one, I think, is that the GM defines the world and the players experience it. This is sometimes true to an extent: a pre-written one-shot with supplied characters doesn't offer much room for players to engage in world-building. But even there, the way you play your character and the details you add to their backstory imply things about the world that aren't in the text and didn't come from the GM. But most games go much further than this.

The second assumption is one that often slides under the radar, and it's the idea that the GM should be providing a challenge for the players. In my experience, the PbtA mantra "play to find out" is a much better expression of what players actually want from TTRPGs. Litherland gets at this when he says that the GM "shouldn't be trying to 'win' the game by making sure the players fail in their goals", but I think he's coming at it from the wrong angle. Instead of thinking about it in terms of challenges, success and failure, winning and losing, I see TTRPGs as being about actions and reactions; causes and effects.

Even in a game as hack-and-slashy as D&D (which can be played almost exactly like a video game with the GM standing in for the computer, if that's what you're into) in most cases the role of the GM isn't really to provide challenges. D&D players generally don't want their characters to die. They feel betrayed if the GM made the fight "too hard" (which is to say, actually provided a challenge). As ill-suited to it as the rules are, most D&D players want the fights to be cinematic; to provide that sense of excitement without any expectation that the protagonists could ever lose. More than "Do we have the skill to defeat these enemies", players are asking "What happens if we kill these guys? Where does the story go next?"

And that's why GMing is not like writing a book. The players want to have agency in the world. They want the decision of whether to fight these guys, or talk to them, or sneak past them, or whatever else, to mean something. It's not the GM's carefully choreographed performance, it's collaborative storytelling. The story should surprise the GM as much as it does the other players. It's not the GM putting on a show for the players, it's everyone working together. If you bring nothing to the table and expect the GM to do all the work - if I could tell this story just the same without your input - you're not pulling your weight. Why would anyone want to play with you? Why should the GM agree to that? This isn't a job. You're not paying for it. If you want to be passively entertained, watch a movie.